Isaac's Children: Two Midrashim
Gellman, Marc
ISAAC'S CHILDREN TWO MIDRASHIM MARC GELLMAN After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham," and he answered, "Here I am." And He said, "Take your son, your favored one, Isaac,...
...Whereupon God said, Even Isaac...
...Ishmael did not reveal his identity to Joseph because he did not want Joseph to ask his help in returning home...
...When the water and provisions are depleted, Hagar places the child under a bush to die and sits weeping and disconsolate at a distance, so as not to hear his death...
...The brothers were silent as Ishmael left their tent...
...Reuben said, "Let us not take his life...
...Further, the strange revelation that all to follow will only be a test adds to the growing ambiguity of this verse...
...God had to know whether the expulsion of Ishmael was the result of base inclination or true piety...
...Stories he had learned from his mother...
...God, as it were, had misgivings...
...Concerning the matters of Hagar and Ishmael God had great misgivings...
...His dream life and his waking life were at war inside him...
...Yes...
...Abraham had misgivings, they answered...
...He had never dealt in slaves...
...Such was the beginning of the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael...
...and we can say, "a wild beast devoured him...
...Too much hatred still remained between the sons of Isaac who lived in Canaan and the sons of Ishmael who lived in the desert...
...A beginning which is not a beginning...
...Jacob awakened before dawn...
...And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring" (21:12-13...
...Joseph was obedient, his other sons rebellious...
...Jacob knew of his sons' resentment against Joseph, and in order to separate the eleven from Joseph, he sent them to Shechem to pasture his flocks...
...His father Jacob chided him, "Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow low to you to the ground...
...Rashi after Bereshit Rabbah 55:7 There is another version . . . God said to Abraham, "Take your son," that is, take the child whom you called "my son"—not the child whom you called merely "the son of the slave woman...
...Ishmael sang songs to Joseph...
...Ishmael awakened before dawn...
...Abraham was stunned and silent...
...What is that...
...Though Ishmael was firstborn, Isaac was chosen, Ishmael was cast out...
...And finally God saw that Abraham's response to this vicious demand for usurpation and murder was not outrage, not a screaming denunciation, not even a simple "no...
...That morning at dawn Joseph was called to his father who said, " 'Your brothers are pasturing at Shechem...
...That night, the boy did not dream...
...Now, as a father of 13 children, he had resolved never again to allow envy, greed and jealousy to divide the house of Israel...
...The midrash builds an argument into these words: Your son—Abraham said to God, "I have two sons...
...We have a healthy young lad to sell for 20 pieces of silver...
...Ishmael did let Joseph ride with him on his chief's camel, which struck his sons as odd, but they dismissed it as the idiosyncrasy of an old man...
...37:25) Then their greed prevailed...
...They all told the story in their own way...
...The brothers would surely try to kill him before he reached home in order to protect the lie they had told their father Jacob...
...What things have just happened which necessitate a test...
...Who had misgivings...
...Concerning what matters did God have misgivings...
...This time Abraham was not laying water on the shoulder of Hagar...
...Joseph was quick, they were sluggish...
...Judah said to his brothers, 'What do we gain by killing our brother and covering up his blood...
...And then Scripture tells how Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket, how Abraham offered up the ram instead of his son, and of how Abraham called the name of that place, "God will see" (22:13-14...
...Once before, as a child, he had torn apart his family by stealing the birthright and blessing from his brother Esau...
...Abraham was weeping unconsoled...
...But still he dreamed...
...Why did God not reveal this to him at the very first...
...His most recent midrash for children, "The Crier and the Shepherd," appeared in moment in May 1982...
...I will send to you some Midianite traders who are with us on this caravan and they will pay you for the boy on my behalf...
...Now a ram is caught in the bush, not the baby Ishmael who was placed under the bush to die...
...And finally, two promises from God: The first, that "through Isaac shall your descendants be named" (ki b'yitzchaky'kareh I'chah zerah...
...asked Ishmael...
...Isaac did not intend to cast out Esau, yet even so it was done...
...Ishmael, riding on his chief's camel, was the first to reach the brothers...
...Abraham is blessed because he passed a test—a test that never had to be, but a test which was compelled by Abraham's vacillation at the murder of his wife Hagar and his son Ishmael...
...The old man Ishmael never revealed to his sons the identity of the young slave boy bought in Dothan...
...He is called Joseph the son of Jacob," answered the brothers...
...Yet the brothers knew the ways of the covenant, how one is chosen and the others cast out...
...sharers of the same fate...
...God had misgivings...
...Yes," answered Joseph, "it is a small caravan town which is on the road to Egypt...
...After their anger had cooled, he intended to send Joseph to them in the hopes that, away from his influence, the brothers might come to their own peace...
...Abraham replied, "I love both of them...
...The brothers were smiling when suddenly Ishmael turned and, looking them straight in the eye, spoke with fury, "Tell your father that God has heard the cry of a child of Israel in Canaan...
...He wore a wonderful coat of colors and was favored by his father in all things...
...So as not to confuse him suddenly lest his mind become distracted and bewildered and in his confused state he would involuntarily consent, when there would have been no merit in his sacrifice, and so that he might more highly value God's command and that God might reward him for the increasing sacrifice demanded by obedience to each and every expression used here...
...Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels bearing gum, balm and ladanum to be taken to Egypt...
...He knew of the coat of many colors...
...After these things" Abraham journeyed to Beer-sheva where he found his wife Hagar and his son Ishmael...
...Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let us not do away with him ourselves...
...Esau, Jacob's brother, was married to Mahalat, his daughter, and so he was kept well informed about the family of Jacob...
...They sounded familiar and soon Joseph was asleep...
...The ways of the covenant will never be the same...
...Some Midianites, however, knew that they had sold the boy to Ishmael...
...God was furious and continued, "The one whom you love"—that is, the one whom you loved more...
...The second call was for Abraham, the father of Ishmael...
...God's response to Abraham's unbelievable moral lassitude could be read as God's comforting word in a time of trouble—a promise of a line of descendants through Isaac and through Ishmael...
...The God of his father had promised the land to the descendants of his half-brother...
...From what God saw, the progenitor of the Jewish people was nothing more than a weak-willed accomplice in murder...
...Scripture tells (16:1-16) how a barren Sinai offered her Egyptian maidservant, Hagar, to her husband Abram so that an heir might be produced...
...He told these dreams to his brothers and to his father, and he was severely scolded by them...
...After these things God tested Abraham . . .(22:1) So begins the story of the binding of Isaac—the testing of Abraham...
...37:22) "Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels bearing gum, balm, and ladanum to be taken to Egypt...
...everyone who hears it will laugh with me" (21:6...
...Scripture concludes by telling of the blessing of Abraham and of the blessing of all the nations of the world through Abraham...
...As usual, Midianite traders were taken along to care for the goods, scout the road and protect the caravan...
...Ishmael refused...
...The only thing that keeps Abraham's expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael from being simple murder is God's promise to make Ishmael a great nation (v'gam et ben ha'amah I'goi asimenu...
...Scripture tells (21:1-21) how Sarai, now called Sarah, is finally given a son in her old age...
...Genesis 39:1 "Who sold Joseph...
...While awake, he was an obedient brother and son, but in his dreams, Joseph was another person...
...One chosen, and one cast out...
...God said, "Sarah your wife will bear you a son and you shall name him Isaac...
...Abram takes Hagar as his wife and she conceives...
...These midrashim were written for adults...
...It was an abomination to him...
...After these things" Abraham could be the father of two nations since he had learned at last what it meant to be the father of two sons...
...R. El'azar ben Yakov taught that once was for Abraham and once was for those who are like Abraham in all the generations...
...Now the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael is completely reenacted and completely expiated...
...The brothers left before dawn for Shechem, but to spite their father and to prevent the little pest from following them, they headed north, away from Shechem, to the small caravan town of Dothan which was on the road to Egypt...
...Both Isaac and Ishmael are Abraham's offspring—Abraham's zerah—Abraham's seed...
...So the old man Ishmael asked Nebaiot, his eldest son, to prepare his chief's camel for a journey to Egypt...
...Concerning the matters of Hagar and Ishmael—concerning the matters at Beer-lahai-roi and Beer-sheva—God had great misgivings...
...God then said, The one whom you love...
...Now we remember that Sarah is first angered by Ishmael when she sees him at play (m'tzachek...
...The Scripture tells how Abraham and Isaac journeyed to the mountain of Moriah with servants and animals, and how Abraham took the fir and the slaughtering knife and laid the wood on Isaac, and how they went both of them together in silence up the mountain...
...He wanted to die in the land of his mother—the land of his wife...
...God hears the baby cry, consoles Hagar with the promise to make him the father of a great nation, and forms a well of water for them to drink...
...Why did Abraham have misgivings...
...Nebaiot had just assembled a caravan to carry gum, balm and ladanum to Pharoah in Egypt...
...Scripture tells of Abraham's immediate reaction: "The thing was displeasing to Abraham on account of his son" (vayerah hadavar m'od b'einei avraham al odot b'no) (21:11...
...Genesis 22:1-2 "Why did God test Abraham...
...The brothers had headed the flocks back on the road away from Dothan to the valley of Hebron...
...The covenant that took them into the land had cast him into the desert...
...Now Ishmael had heard rumors of the problems in Jacob's family...
...Further, God says, "Do whatever Sarah tells you to do," which means to say, "Listen to a jealous conniving person, hot to the one true God...
...37:10) "No," Joseph answered sheepishly while awake...
...And the second, that "I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring...
...Instead, Abraham might have been a murderer, using this occasion to eliminate an unfavored son...
...Scripture also tells of God's response to Abraham's consternation: "Be not displeased because of the lad and because of your slave woman...
...Joseph followed his brothers and found them at Dothan...
...There is another version . . . After these things God tested Abraham . . . This means to say, "After the misgivings concerning the matters that happened there...
...Jacob had given Joseph the marvelous coat as a token of his love, not as a sign of the covenant...
...And then Scripture tells how at that very moment an angel of the Lord called out to him saying, "Abraham...
...After the weaning of Isaac and after a feast for Isaac, Sarah sees "the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, at play" (21:9...
...So Abraham arises early in the morning (yayashkem baboker) and places bread, a skin of water, and the child on Hagar's shoulder and casts her out into the wilderness of Beer-sheva...
...He repented for the matter at Beer-lahai-roi, and he repented for the matter at Beer-sheva...
...And then Scripture tells how Abraham answered saying, "I am here"—hineni...
...After all, he is our brother, our own flesh.'" (37:26-27) The caravan arrived in Dothan in the late afternoon of that day...
...This dream was always followed by another in which the sun and the moon and the eleven stars all bowed down to him...
...Who had misgivings...
...God saw that Sarai had tormented a woman whose only crime was conceiving a son...
...Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits...
...do to her as you please (hatov b'einaiech).'" After exceedingly harsh treatment Hagar flees into the wilderness where an angel of the Lord finds her by a spring of water...
...Come let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let us not do away with him ourselves...
...And God had great misgivings at Beer-sheva because of what was seen there...
...Abram then says to Sarai, "Behold (hinei) your maid is in your power...
...The rabbinic answer concerning a forgotten animal sacrifice as the precipitating cause for the command to kill Isaac is strained—transforming a test into an obscenity...
...And He said, "Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land ofMoriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights which I will point out to you...
...We will see what comes of his dreams!'" (37:19-20) Then, their cunning prevailed...
...But they are not called wife and son, perhaps to make the expulsion more painless...
...After these things" . . . Abraham was free...
...seed of the same man...
...Yet there is another version . . . God's response drips with bitter irony and sarcasm...
...And then Scripture tells how Abraham built an altar and placed the wood on the altar and placed his son Isaac upon the wood . . . and how Abraham put forth his hand and took the knife to kill his son...
...Songs he had learned from his mother...
...they are only called "the slave woman and the child...
...He is called "the lad" or "the son of the slave woman"—never is he called by his true name...
...he cried out in his dreams...
...So Scripture tells how "Abraham arose early in the morning" (vayashkem baboker) (22:3...
...Esau had told him often of the marvelous coat worn by the boy Joseph...
...In this, the 21st chapter of Genesis, Ishmael's name is never once explicitly mentioned...
...God saw that Abram gave over his pregnant wife, Hagar, into the hands of his jealous wife, Sarai, so that Sarai might do anything which was "pleasing in her eyes" to his wife, Hagar, whom he now called only a maidservant...
...That night, Joseph was cold and afraid...
...And God said to Abraham, "Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and bring him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you" (22:1-2...
...Therefore God called to Abraham and Abraham answered, "I am here" (hineni...
...Potiphar bought all his goods...
...He answered him, Your only son...
...Shed no blood, but rather cast him into that pit out in the wilderness, but do not touch him yourselves...
...The Second Midrash Then they [Joseph's brothers] sat down to a meal...
...So the Midianite traders pulled Joseph up out of the pit, and they paid 20 pieces of silver to the brothers...
...Their answer is that Abraham was anxious over his inadvertence in not setting aside a bullock for God during the feast held in honor of the weaning of Isaac...
...Genesis 17:19-21 God's blessing of Ishmael was fulfilled in the desert, yet the bitterness within him was slow to subside...
...As for Ishmael, I have heeded you...
...It is, after all, only the murder of a slave woman and her child, not really the murder of your wife and your son...
...The stories eased Joseph's fear in the night...
...Joseph awakened before dawn...
...Jacob never spoke of him...
...He had in mind to camp that night at the small caravan town of Dothan which was on the road to Egypt...
...Hagar calls the name of the spring where she met the angel "Beer-lahai-roi" because she called the God she met there "a God of seeing...
...This time Abraham was laying wood for a fire offering on the shoulder of his son...
...The rabbis of the old midrash, close to the truth of the story, ask why God did not reveal to Abraham that Isaac was to be sacrificed in direct language...
...Their father Jacob—chosen, their uncle Esau—cast out...
...The first misgiving was caused by the matter at Beer-lahai-roi...
...The brothers, however, did not recognize Ishmael...
...Vgam et ben ha'amah I'goi asimenu ki zarachah hu...
...Now the one chosen is the one cast out...
...They said, 'Here comes that dreamer...
...As if to focus the obscenity of Abraham's vacillation, God tells Abraham, "Do not be displeased (alyerah b'einechah) because of the lad and because of the slave woman" (21:12...
...he asked...
...and I will maintain my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring to come...
...Though Esau was firstborn, Jacob was chosen, Esau cast out...
...Joseph remained with him around the camp, they were men of the fields...
...The shadows of evening lengthened on that day...
...Both God and Abraham were then silent...
...Then Judah said to his brothers, "What do we gain by killing our brother and covering up his blood...
...The dreams awakened him from sleep...
...I will make him fertile and exceedingly numerous...
...Could you tell me where they are pasturing?' The man said, "They are gone from here, for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan.'" (37:15-17) "Do you know the place...
...In the old midrash the rabbis sensed these problems and offered the first version of an answer...
...Of the twelve sons of Jacob, Reuben was the eldest, but Joseph was the favorite...
...Sarai then blames Abram and demands that the Lord judge between Hagar and herself...
...Isaac's name is from tzachak—to play or laugh...
...Genesis 37:25-28 The Midianites [Hebrew: Medanitesy meanwhile sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, a courtier of Pharaoh, his chief steward...
...Genesis 37:36 When Joseph was taken down to Egypt, a certain Egyptian, Potiphar, a courtier of Pharaoh and his chief steward, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there...
...Neither was Canaan...
...They saw him from afar and before he came close to them they conspired to kill him...
...Which means to tell us that Isaac and Ishmael—yitzchak and m'tzachek—are, as it were, the same person...
...Ishmael, meaning, "the Lord has paid heed to your suffering...
...Now Abraham can say for himself what Hagar discovered in the wilderness at the moment of her greatest travail: God sees...
...He felt death and could not sleep...
...After these things God tested Abraham . . . This means to say, "After the misgivings concerning the matters that happened there...
...Thus the midrashic meaning of the enigmatic verse is, "after the misgiving concerning the matters that happened there...
...They feared for their future every time they saw the coat of colors, and their fear turned to fury when they heard Joseph's dreams— dreams of chosenness, dreams of dominion...
...His name is Isaac, for as Sarah says, "God has made laughter for me...
...Which means to say, "Do not let the murder disturb you...
...And God had great misgivings at Beer-lahai-roi because of what was seen there...
...37:17-18) First, their hatred prevailed...
...He was crying...
...And when she [Hagar] saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt upon her mistress [Sarai...
...After all, he is our brother, our own flesh...
...And then it tells that "Abraham returned (vayashav Avraham), arose and journeyed to Beer-sheva, and dwelt in Beer-sheva...
...In their midrash on the phrase "after these things," they hear in the word ahar (after) intimations of the word hirhur, meaning misgiving or reflection...
...The expulsion of the m'tzachek sealed the fate of his brother yitzchak...
...Angered by the thought of her son Isaac having to share Abraham's fortune with his half-brother, Sarah demands that Hagar and Ishmael—the slave woman and her son—be cast out...
...God saw that Sarai had asked God to choose between Hagar and herself, and God saw that Abram himself chose...
...No one, except Ishmael and a very few Midianites, ever knew who really bought Joseph and who really sold him in Egypt...
...His mother, Hagar, had been an Egyptian slave, and the purchase of slaves would have been a violation of her memory...
...whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your descendants be named...
...They sold Joseph for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who brought Joseph to Egypt...
...Instead the verse builds: "your son . . . your only son . . . whom you love . . . Isaac...
...All to prevent being cast out by a covenant with room for only one...
...They hated him and would kill him if they could...
...In such a way had he himself become reconciled with his brother Esau...
...Come, I will send you to them.' And Joseph answered, 'I am ready.' And Jacob said, 'Go now, see how your brothers are and how the flocks are faring, and bring me back word.' " (37:13-14) Joseph left with the arrogance of one about to be chosen, not the fear of one about to be cast out...
...And then Scripture tells of how the young boy Isaac asks his father, "Where is the lamb for the burnt offering...
...Now the other brothers feared that they would be like Ishmael and Esau— victims of the covenant...
...He kissed them and cried with them and dwelt with them...
...The man asked him, 'What are you looking for?' He answered, 'I am looking for my brothers...
...The two promises are linked...
...The rabbinic question posed by the connection of ahar and hirhur is brilliant...
...Abraham said, "This one is the only son of his mother and the other is the only son of his mother...
...The Pharaoh's chief steward, a eunuch named Potiphar, would surely buy the lad...
...In Shechem Joseph met not his brothers but a stranger on the way...
...God was furious and continued, "Your only son"—that is, take the only son you have left...
...When Midianite traders passed by, they pulled Joseph up out of the pit...
...God was furious and continued, "Take Isaac...
...One chosen, and one cast out...
...Old beyond counting, dimmed in vision and strength, he could no longer shoot his bow or ride with his twelve sons on the caravan routes from Gilead to Egypt that had made him a rich man and the Ishmaelites a rich people...
...Like Hagar in the wilderness, Abraham was forced to endure the innocent agony of a child about to die...
...Egypt was not his land...
...The sacrifice of the least loved led inexorably to the testing of the willingness to sacrifice the best loved...
...His despair would not allow him sleep...
...Ishmael sat with Joseph and told him stories about Egypt...
...The caravan of Ishmaelites had headed out on the road away from Dothan which went down to Egypt...
...Because of the matter at Beer-sheva God was compelled to test Abraham...
...God saw that they were to be murdered so that Isaac would not have to share his father's inheritance—an inheritance in which he had no share as it belonged by rights to the eldest, to Ishmael...
...What is the name of the young boy whom you wish to sell...
...Because of the matter at Beer-lahai-roi God was compelled to test Abram...
...He knew his love for Joseph was pulling his family apart...
...Who had misgivings, the rabbis asked...
...In the first dream he and his brothers were binding sheaves of barley, but his sheaf stood upright while the sheaves which were his brothers bowed down low to the ground all about him...
...Ishmael rose to leave the tent when, suddenly, his weak eyes caught a glimpse of something brightly colored in the corner of the tent...
...The dreams were always the same...
...Ishmael intended to sell Joseph into the safest place in Egypt, the court of the Pharaoh...
...The first call was for Abraham, the father of Isaac...
...The second misgiving was caused by a second matter at Beer-sheva...
...In Bereshit Rabbah 56:7, the rabbis ask, "Why did God call Abraham's name twice...
...But Abraham may not have truly believed the promise...
...But my covenant I will maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year...
...Hatred of his father's evanescent love, envy of his brother's physical prowess, and the injustice of one so bright as he submitting to a family of those much less gifted—all these feelings surfaced in the dreams...
...Concerning what matters did God have misgivings...
...They invited him into their tent, offering him food, and then Joseph...
...Abraham was terrified and shaking...
...At sunrise, Ishmael led the caravan away from Gilead to Egypt...
...The only way to find out was to command Abraham to murder Isaac, who was also his seed—but his favorite seed, upon whom a promise for a glorious future had also been given...
...asked the stranger...
...Indeed, both Isaac and Ishmael are linked...
...There is another version . . . "Abraham returned" also means "Abraham repented...
...Their grandfather Isaac— chosen, their great uncle Ishmael—cast out...
...Abraham returned and arose and journeyed to Beer-sheva and dwelt in Beer-sheva...
...Yet his love for Joseph, the child of his old age and the child of his favorite wife, Rachel, was uncontrolled...
...The angel instructs Hagar to return and submit to Sarai, and tells her that she shall have many children, the first of whom will be a son, Marc Gellman, a moment contributing editor, is rabbi of Temple Beth Torah in Dix Hills, New York...
...I hereby bless him...
...victims of the same father...
...The willingness to kill Ishmael, however slight and momentary, created the necessity for the commanded murder of Isaac...
...Joseph reminded him of his own childhood, they were eleven Esaus...
...Ishmael was stunned...
...Ishmael was silent for a long time and then he said, "I will buy the lad from you for 20 pieces of silver, but it is not my custom to buy slaves, and I am with my sons...
...He shall be the father of twelve chieftains, and I will make of him a great nation...
...Ishmael wrapped him in a dull grey woolen coat which kept him warm in the night...
...Immediately he recognized them as the children of Jacob...
...To the sons of Ishmael on the caravan, the lad seemed to be the property of the Midianites...
...After these things" God had no more misgivings about the progenitor of his holy people...
...The same rare and powerful phrase, vayashkem baboker, initiates the two stories which are only one story...
...His brothers agreed...
...God saw Sarah ask Abraham to cast out his wife and son—which is to say, God saw Sarah ask Abraham to murder his wife and son...
...That reflexive phrase, "after these things," compels us to ask, "after which things...
...But there is another version . . . God called to him from heaven saying, "Abraham1...
...but simply "displeasure," or perhaps a better translation of vayerah b'einav, severe discomfort...
...In years to come he will hear the cries of the children of Israel in Egypt...
...Who could understand the ways of the covenant...
...R. Hiyya taught that this was an expression of love and encouragement {lashon chibah, lashon zaruz...
...It is the coat of the young boy," they answered...
...Ishmael summoned all his strength for one last journey to Egypt...
Vol. 7 • June 1982 • No. 6
